Glenda Blackwell decided to teach her husband a lesson about his gambling habits. To do so, she bought the wrong kind of lotto tickets from Suttles Quik Mart in Asheville, North Carolina. Her passive-aggressive plan backfired, because the scratch-off ticket won $1 million.
Mrs. Blackwell's husband, Buddy, asked her to buy two Powerball tickets when she was at the convenience store. She decided he gambled too much, so she decided to buy a Carolina Millions scratch-off ticket. The ticket was from the $10 Carolina Millions scratch-off game.
"You're Just Wasting Your Money"
The 57-year old Glenda Blackwell told the local ABC affiliate, WLOS, that she was happy to be wrong in this case. Blackwell said, "I was going to be ugly and buy a scratch-off to show him they didn't hit. Sometimes I get aggravated with him, so I tell him, 'You're just wasting your money.'"
She added, "I had to eat my words, but they were worth eating. So, I was very happy."
One can only imagine the conversation the two had. Glenda Blackwell showed her husband Buddy the Carolina Millions scratch-off ticket to show him that two could waste money on the lottery. If he is not a scratch-off fan, then he was likely not impressed by a form of gambling seen as paying off $5 and $10 at a time. So when his wife began to scratch off the acrylic covering and the winning numbers started to appear, shared angst must have turned to shared excitement.
While it might not be the healthiest way to conduct a marriage relationship in a general sense, it worked out in this case. The two appear to have made a joint decision on how the money would be spent, so the dispute seems to be a thing of the past.
Accepted the $415,503 Lump Sum
Buddy and Glenda chose to be paid the lump sum payment of $415,503, after taxes. The two say they plan on using the money to purchase a new home and put their grandchildren through college.
The couple's decision sounds like a sensible use of lottery winnings. Mrs. Blackwell said of buying a home, "We've struggled a lot, so now we can buy our own home and our own land. It'll be paid for and I don't have to worry about that."
Odds of Winning the Lottery
Mathematicians tend to agree with Glenda Blackwell on the point she was trying to make. Experts say the odds are 1 in 292 million of winning the big jackpot on the Powerball Lottery. The odds are better someone gets struck by lightning.
Yet the case of the Blackwells is a good indication why so many people play the lotto. Each has a chance at a life-changing jackpot. While their odds are not great, from the time they buy a lottery ticket until the outcome is determined, they walk around with some sense they can win and their economic outlook will be better.
Powerball and Mega Millions Lottery
As lotto corporations have said in their advertisements before, people win the lottery every day. That's more a testament to the sheer number of people playing than the probability of winning, but it's true. The lottery has the worst odds of any legal form of gambling. Only a state-run organization could offer such odds.
Carolina Millions Lottery
Unintentionally, it might have been a good time to buy a Carolina Millions scratch-off ticket. The game just started in early October and it has 8 winning tickets presented. That meant that the maximum number of winning cards were in circulation, at a time when it probably behooved the lottery corporation to circulate a winner, for the sake of promotion.
Seven of the remaining eight tickets are still in circulation. The publicity of Glenda Blackwell winning the way she did is likely to cause an uptick in Carolina Millions ticket sales.
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